Paul Sereno Latest Dinosaur Find: The Precursor To T-Rex
CHICAGO (WBBM) -- The University of Chicago's head dinosaur hunter has unwrapped a small new package with teeth and claws--a distant ancestor of T-Rex.
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Eodromaeus, or dawn runner, was the pint-sized predecessor to the carnivorous dinosaurs. It stood about four feet tall, weighed about 15 pounds. It was very agile, had a tail and possessed dog-like teeth. It roamed the earth about 230 million years ago.
"It give us a bird's eye view of where the predatory line of dinosaurs came from," said the University of Chicago's Paul Sereno. "This is really the oldest and most primitive form of a lineage that ultimately would give rise to animals as fearsome as T-Rex."
The new dino was found in Argentina--in the oldest dinosaur bed on the planet--in 1996 but took years to dig and clean the skeleton. Then scientists had to figure out their importance.
